Preterit
by train to greenwich
Summary: A series of unconnected drabbles and oneshots on A and B.
1. murder the hypotenuse

I do not own Death Note.

This particular drabble is a reupload of a oneshot by the same name; sorry to inconvenience anyone.

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><p>Beyond had always hated the letter A.<p>

Well, he mused, not always.

Some days he liked the letter A. He wanted to put it with lots of other letters, so it wouldn't ever be lonely. On the days he liked the letter A, he especially liked putting A with B. He thought the two letters were good for each other; they made something good together, like C2, or the hypotenuse of a triangle. B liked triangles, he decided. Three points: black, white, and grey-a monochromatic triad.

Some days he hated it; wanted to rip the little legs off the character and stab them through the epicenter of the triangle it made. B wanted to see it bleed ink. He wanted to see it stain the paper, infect the naïve little letters it stood by. On the days he hated A, he would isolate the letter, a tiny indefinite article floating in a sea of white. When he hated the letter A, he never, ever put it with B. That little A would only make the letter B unhappy.

He hated the letter A because it would change its sound, saying one thing one word, another thing the next. A could be unreliable; unpredictable; fluctuating. Whatever A was, it was not constant. It wasn't like B; B stayed true, B never changed. That was the letter's task, its obligation. Each had a job to do, and to each it's own-not an option.

Letter A was destined to be first, in the beginning. A was vital; A was important; A was _needed. _At times, B envied the letter A; wished _he _could be the letter A.

Then, though, he remembered how the rest of the alphabet would take advantage of the letter A, and he would be happy he wasn't. A was gone; A was forgotten. And that would lead to the inevitable:

A was dead.

B began to think that he was jealous after all.


	2. sister sister

Language. T for language in this chapter. I would not want to sully your virgin ears/eyes variegated sensory organs with my profanity. Hence my disclaimer.

Well, my word count ended at 1,111 when I last checked, but my author's note kind of ruined it. Like 1+1+1+1=4, which is 1+3, which is 13, which looks like B. I curse my obsessive-compulsive tendencies(as I try to figure out some magical math thingie for A). I also worked in a shoutout line to the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases novel; tell me if you spot it.

Aaaaaaaand, as one last note, you, oh lovely, kind, review-leaving reader, can interpret their relationship however you want.

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><p>"That's my sister." A carefully spreads the faded photograph, smoothing the creases that skittered across it against the bedspread. "And me, I'm right there." He points to the smaller figure next to the washed-out girl in the picture, a minute version of the A in front of B now, all dark hair and serious eyes. The girl smiles, though; she looks to around thirteen or fourteen, and A twelve.<p>

B scrutinizes the picture, looking over A's shoulder, and A pretends it doesn't unnerve him. "When was it taken?" he asks, eyes flicking from the figures in the picture to A and back again.

A sighs, answering, "Three, four years ago. She…" He trails off, face clouding over. "She and my mom..." He trails off before continuing, albeit more quietly. "They think my mother brought her when she left England, right after this was taken." _Right after she sent me here_, he adds silently. _Right after they showed up at our door, asking about me, saying that they'd seen my testing scores—_

B carefully lowers himself into a cross-legged position, directly across from A. "Really." It's not a question on his part.

A frowns, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the picture to fixate on B. "What do you mean?"

B exhales slowly, wrapping his hands around his ankles and leaning back. For someone so intelligent, A has no sense. "Well, isn't it a bit convenient?" Seeing what can be interpreted as puzzlement on A's face, he elaborates. "Your mother leaves, and your father was already gone; old man Wammy could have paid them to—"

"Leave my _parents_," A grits out, "out of this. _I don't care about them_."

"Sure you don't, A." B humors him. Goads him, because he likes to see A riled.

"Like you can talk," A says venomously, incensed. "My parents aren't _dead."_

"I made my peace with that a long time ago; I just had to realize that they didn't leave me _voluntarily. _Maybe they jumped at the chance to abandon their freak of a child, their glaring genetic mistake_—"_

"_Backup."_

"SHUT UP!" B lunges for him, knocking them both to the floor. A grapples desperately with him, frightened by the strength in B's wiry frame as he gains the upper hand.

The picture flutters to the ground in their wake, neglected for the moment.

B settles himself atop A's chest, squeezing his wrists in a viselike grip. "You know," B hisses, face near A's, grotesque with sudden, irrational rage, "sometimes I care about you as much as I care about L, you little perfect genius." B slams A's wrists to the floor, effectively pinning him. "You know _nothing._"

"Oh, really? Then why are you _second?_" A knows that he's pushing all the wrong buttons, rubbing salt in old sores—a dangerous game to play, especially with B, of all people.

B traces one of the veins on A's exposed forearm with his thumb, surprisingly gentle. "I've dreamed about watching you as you bleed out," he says, his tone quite matter-of-fact. "I want to watch, to see if you and your brilliant mind can solve the mystery, figure out who among us killed you, as you're exsanguinating on the carpet; it would be fucking _gorgeous_—"

"At least they need _me_; you're just insurance." But A lies, even now; he doesn't have L's detective code, and never will; he's on a wild goose chase and he knows it. But he is still required to try, required to grasp at L's feet.

"Don't be ridiculous," B says. "We're all 'just insurance'. And you, worst of all…" He shakes his head back and forth slowly, clicking his tongue. "Poor A, forced to live up to L, held up to impossible expectations. Why, it wouldn't be surprising to everyone if you slit your own wrists, if you couldn't cope with the pressure…" He ends in a whisper, smiling down at A, thumbs still drawing invisible patterns across the veins on his wrists.

A tenses beneath B and hopes to the god he no longer believes in that he doesn't notice, because B had just hit the nail on the head, just voiced his very thoughts. "You're—you're fucking messed up. A freak!" A tries to ignore the possibility that B's fingers may be itching for his neck, nails drawn to his jugular.

"We're all freaks, A, darling," B singsongs. "You just don't realize how twisted we all are yet." He sighs, and as the underlying emotion on his face shifts to sadness, like muscles moving under skin, B's attitude towards a changes as well. He runs a finger down A's cheek, and something inexplicable passes through his eyes and into his voice, lending it an odd quality. "You're still so sheltered, A. So naïve, you don't even realize." He turns away for a moment, and A seizes the opportunity to shove B off of him, sending him sprawling across the carpet.

"You think I'm naïve?" A forces out. "You think I don't see what's going on here? You think I don't see what _you're _doing?"

"NO!" B shouts, as the pendulum swings back to irrational rage. "You just can't accept it, can you? Why can't you do that, A? Why? You're just making things harder for yourself!" B puts a hand to his forehead, trying to control his breathing. "The numbers don't lie, A," he says, finally, mostly to himself. "I'm sorry, but the numbers don't lie." And there it is, out in the open; the only time he has ever vocally acknowledged it.

A closes his eyes for a full minute before reopening them, letting the silence talk. "Maybe it's better this way." He speaks ambiguously, referring to both B's cryptic little statements and his own convictions—and lack thereof.

"Better?" B laughs, a short, choppy sound like breaking terra cotta. "Yeah. We're their pet project, A. None of us will ever be L." He crawls across the floor to retrieve the photograph. The girl stares out at him, the numbers over her head long-expired and stationary, like the smile on her face. "And don't lie to me, A. I know you, and I know the sadistic streak that you have somewhere, buried underneath all that innocence." He quirks an eyebrow in A's direction. "Or pseudo-naïveté, mayhap?"

A says nothing.

"Like you don't want to step over L. Step past him." He pauses. "Step on him."

"I never wanted this, B."

B raises his eyebrows, holding the picture between his index and middle fingers. "Your funeral." He flicks it at A, and it settles to the carpet between them as B leaves, slamming the door behind him.


End file.
